


Heart

by LallybrochLoser



Category: Outlander (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:06:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23457505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LallybrochLoser/pseuds/LallybrochLoser
Summary: Shock is a hell of a thing. Whether he likes it or not, accepts it truly or not, Jamie’s beloved godfather is dead. What’s going through his mind as he processes this?
Comments: 7
Kudos: 39





	Heart

**Author's Note:**

> I’d been thinking about this particular scene for way longer than I should be. The way Jamie’s rubbing at his chest just above his heart, the realization finally hitting him that Murtagh is really gone. I decided to expand upon this, with this here yon wee one-shot. Those who know my work, will know this one will probably break your heart just as much as the episode did. Enjoy! :D

Blind. Deaf.

The moment Murtagh took his last breath before Jamie’s eyes, he couldn’t see anything. He couldn’t comprehend the raw panic in his voice, begging someone, _anyone,_ for help. All he could think of was getting his godfather to his wife, Claire, once heralded and feared as _La Dame Blanche,_ so she could heal him. Even after being her husband for nearly thirty years, he was still amazed at the way she could heal even the most broken, damaged body and soul.

Dragging Murtagh through the bloodied woods with the help of John Quicey Myers and one other man, they arrived at the physician’s tent Claire and Bree were holed up in, ailing those wounded in the battle.

“Do what ye must. Heal him!” He’d barely remembered ordering Claire.

But she just stared at him, the torn and heartbroken expression on her face was only visible to their daughter, her fingers still pressing lightly into Murtagh’s neck.

Jamie started at Claire, dumbfounded. _Why is she just standin’ there?! Why isna she healing him?! Is she no’ capable? Nae, that isna possible. It’s Claire! She can heal anybody!_

“I’m sorry,” she choked between fits of sobs, “he’s gone.”

The words didn’t register with Jamie’s brain at first, despite hearing the desperate plea in her voice. As if to say, _please forgive me._ His mind once again blanked out; nothing registered within his field of vision.

“He canna be. He canna...”

Jamie’s mind went into overdrive with this blatantly false information. He almost wanted to say, “now isna the time fer jokes, Claire, ‘tis no’ funny, now do something.”

But instead, he got angry.

“Do something,” Jamie gritted, then shouted, “SAVE HIM!” 

Claire jumped at the harshness of his tone. Brianna flinched in the corner where she’d drawn the curtain to give her parents some privacy.

Jamie looked down at Murtagh, growing more cyanotic as the minutes went by, and demanded he take back the oath he’d released him from.

“Take it back,” Jamie seethed, “I dinna release ye from yer oath!”

But to no avail.

“Ye canna leave me...ye canna...” 

With his godfather void of any healthy color and cold as ice, the blood from his gunshot wound now just pooling around the entry point, the realization hit Jamie like a thousand horses galloping in his direction.

Murtagh Fitzgibbons Fraser was dead.

_“A ghoistidh.”_

Jamie stumbling out of the tent, despite Claire calling his name.

His conversation with Tryon didn’t improve his disposition. The governor’s clear view of what he considered success at Alamance caused Jamie to spit venomous words of vitriol and hatred for the alliance he willingly formed. He didn’t remember taking off the red coat, the symbol of everything he’d spent most of his adult life fighting against, before throwing at the governor’s feet.

Only as he walked away from Tryon and his men did it all register him his mind. Rubbing at his sternum, his heart fluttered agonizingly. The pounding pressure of blood quickly became the only thing he could hear. 

Pain started to spread throughout his chest. It _really_ hurt, and he didn’t know why. Stress? The adrenaline of the battle finally wearing off?

His breathing started to become a laborious task as well. Harrowing tightness, like a shell closing over a precious pearl, enclosed his cardiovascular organs. He wheezed a bit.

He kept his hand over his heart, as though to remind his frantically, frazzled mind that it still held a beat. Whereas Murtagh’s heart did not.

He dropped to his knees. The impact of hard dirt upon his aching knee caps send his entire world crashing down around him. It all came in at once. The reality, the words he’d said to Claire, to Tryon, even to Murtagh’s corpse, and, to his surprise...memories.

The memories invaded him before he was ready. If he ever could be.

The oath in question that Murtagh had sworn to Jamie as an eight year old boy, mourning his mother’s untimely death.

All the times Murtagh had guarded his weaker right side. No matter the battle.

The night he’d brought Claire into that dilapidated hut with his shoulder painfully dislocated.

The day Murtagh stood beside Jamie as he and Claire became husband and wife.

The day Jamie told Murtagh the truth about Claire.

Culloden, and their subsequent, and surprising, survival.

Right before his transport to Hellwater, thinking he would never, ever see Murtagh again as he was whisked away to the Colonies.

Many years later, when they would indeed reunite in North Carolina.

Releasing Murtagh of the oath. And the tears he shed as the older man walked away.

And the events that led to this moment.

The moment Jamie let it all go, he wept like nobody was watching. More than he ever did in his fifty years of life.


End file.
